Yeah, made it through your reply. We all know all the arguments, it's not useful to keep repeating them to each other. I have one thought, though, and it's in response to this:

The average unemployed American would rather watch TV, draw a government check & buy extra beer with the money than go to school.

You think this is *different* in the US than most places? You think Chinese babies are born somehow WANTING to work 12 hours in factories while studying for PhDs in chemical engineering?

Most human beings are perfectly content to wake up, eat breakfast, put in a few hours doing some bullshit somewhere, go home, relax awhile, fuck and go to sleep.

That is our SPECIES. That is not our nationality. Human beings have their own personal interests, of course, which they may be very passionate and driven about. Generally, this is what takes up the "relax awhile" portion of people's days.

Of all the things on Earth for humans to be interested in, what is the *likelihood* that it's going to be "competing in a labor-market for greater monetary reward"?

I happen to have interests in a few extremely academic subjects that aren't easy to do "recreationally," but I'm not nearly interested/passionate enough about those things to want to devote my waking existence to finding a way to earn money from them.

Rather than a society in which I can easily contribute whatever resources I might have to a shared effort for mutual benefit, we live in a society where those resources are ignored, because there are *others* with the same interests who are committed to finding a way to make money.

The rich are rich because they devote their lives to making money. Good for them. The smartest people, or the best educated, or the most athletic, or the most musically brilliant are most often people who want to devote their lives to those activities, and whether money comes or not is incidental.

It's not "bleeding heart liberal bullshit" to recognize these few basic facts about human beings.

We can choose to acknowledge our greatest faults and seek to reduce their potential for harm, or we can deny them and punish each other for "succumbing" to our true nature.

One person might view humans as worthless bags of shit that need to be beaten to get anything useful out of them. Another sees the potential in a group of creatures that will accomplish some incredible things if you just feed them and leave them alone to noodle around.

Ultimately, I say: recognize that the world is a better place when people are content and busy. Recognize that it is worse when they are demoralized and struggling.

NYC is often called the big apple. Wall Street has been the economic engine of 'New York, New York.' I wonder how Frank Sinatra would sing his famous song on the steps of the stock exchange now. Louis Armstrong the greatest musician to come out of America must be playing the bluest blues you every heard in heaven over the state of New Orleans after Katrina. The rot has set in. America has over-extended itself under the stupid leadership of the Republicans under the baton of George W Bush the born again Christian. All the praying & bible bashing of the fundamentalists will not bring Jesus down from heaven to bail America out of this mess. The rest of the world has been dragged down by this financial debacle & are struggling in the rip tide. The fringes of society in every country in the world will be out in the cold this winter & for years to come.

It's true there is no comparison og Chicago to Detroit. Motown is - always was - a boom or bust city; the only trump card in its deck is the auto industry. Halberstam's classic on the industry documents the American companies' failure to recognize and respect the threat of foreign competition. Over the next decades, they continued operation based on short term profits, ignoring the looming reality of an oil production peak - Pumping out SUVs and failing to increase gas mileage across all models.

Detroit began losing population to the newly-developed suburbs shortly after WWII. It wasn't so much a white flight as a white filter, because of the racist policies of the FHA. I'm old enough to remember when vlack folks couldn't get a conventional loan. Typically, they bought older homes in the city on land contract.

All this, the HUD scandle, the civil disorders in 1967, etc. have militated again the growth and sutaining of my city.

timbukton, your contrast of Detroit to the Points compared to East and West Berlin is stunning. I lived in the western sector, before the wall, in 1955-56. East berlin was a moonscape while much of the West Berlin, particularly Zehledorf in the U.S. Sector, was lovely.

Yes, there is much of Detroit that is still lovely. Some of Detroit's neighborhoods are its best-kept secret; mine for instance, just up the street from U of D Mercy University. Oh, and timbukton forgot to mention we have great jazz here, knowing audiences evoke great performances. Our jazz festival over Labor Day on the river is not to be missed.

Detroiters are indeed polite. Friends who moved here from other urban centers were always struck by the fact that we line up to board buses and are more polite drivers than most other places.

Then vote McCain.

The frontier is astounding, when you drive up East Jefferson, between Detroit, Michigan, and Grosse Pointe, Michigan. It is as close to the difference between old Communist East Berlin and West Berlin as we are likely to find in the USA today. Dan Hoyle should have stressed it more. (This is the famous northern border of Detroit. Maybe you have heard of 8-Mile Road. This is its most extreme example.)

But there is no wall. You drive instantly from blight into tree-shaded loveliness. It's, like, cosmic, dude, that we had East German posters and Detroit posters here today.

I only say, please take a look at Detroit. See how nice it is along the water. Probably, you did not even know Detroit has water. Did you know that the French founders called Detroit, "an earthly paradise." Do you know that Detroiters are the most polite people in the USA?

When you come, let some of us Detroiter Salonistas show you around, and then put your company here. Mayor Kwame is in jail now. We will make you a great deal, and make you feel welcome.